The president of Surf Life Saving Queensland, Ralph Devlin SC, has lashed out at former Ironman champion and a major critic of the organisation, Grant Kenny, in an interview with RN Breakfast this morning.

Mr Devlin said that Mr Kenny, who is a four-time Australian Ironman winner, Olympic bronze medallist and co-founder of the multi-million dollar Curry Kenny Aviation Group, did not understand the funding model of the organisation.

‘Grant Kenny has never run a surf club. He was a fine iron man,’ Mr Devlin said, while conceding that Mr Kenny still volunteered as a surf life saver at his local Noosa club.

Mr Kenny last week encouraged donors to the surf life saving movement to give their money to local clubs rather than Surf Life Saving Australia (SLSA), after losing confidence in the body following the resignation of six of its board members through early 2013. The mass resignation followed close on the heels of an independent review of the not-for-profit body, conducted by Deloitte.

Mr Devlin also responded to another SLSA critic, Christopher Branson QC, lawyer for drowned ironman Saxon Bird’s family, who on Monday’s Breakfast program accused the SLSA of spending $25 million of its annual budget on a 60 administrative staff who were ‘pen-pushers’ running the organisation ‘like a union slush fund.’

‘It’s absolutely refuted,’ Mr Devlin said.

Mr Devlin said that Mr Branson’s annual budget figure of $37 million represented the total spend for the consolidated SLSA group of organisations, including helicopter operations in NSW. The SLSA parent body had an annual budget for the last financial year of $26.7 million and spent $4.58million on administrative expenses, Mr Devlin said, pointing to page 87 of the organisation’s annual report. This represented only a 17.9 per cent spend on administration, which for a not-for-profit fitted ‘excellently’ with industry benchmarks, he said.

‘We have an excellent efficiency at the SLSA,’ Mr Devlin said. ‘The organisation has never been more healthy.’

He said the death of Mr Bird during the Australian Surf Life Saving Championships in 2010 had not sparked the current criticism of the SLSA and its funding model. Allegations that contractual relationships with sponsors placed pressure on the SLSA not to call off competitions like the one at which Mr Bird died were completely unfounded, he added.

‘The state coroner did not find that,’ Mr Devlin said. ‘It’s on the public record.’

‘We call carnivals off every day,’ he added.

But he did concede that the public spat had ‘damaged the perception of the public a little’ regarding the SLSA.

‘We’re fine. We’re moving on. The dissidents here can be numbered on one hand.’